


In the Dark

by whatlighttasteslike (waitingforeleven)



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: AU, Angst, Cuddling & Snuggling, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Hospitals, Hurt/Comfort, Sharing a Bed, injuries, post 4x09
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-19
Updated: 2017-01-19
Packaged: 2018-09-18 13:20:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,038
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9386993
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/waitingforeleven/pseuds/whatlighttasteslike
Summary: A 4x09 AU where Fitz hits his head a bit harder, so he doesn’t wake up until after Mack destroys AIDA. Angst and hurt/comfort ensues.





	

**Author's Note:**

> The role reversal no one asked for! Since Jemma was unaware of all the action happening in 4x07, I wanted to take a crack at what it would be like for that to happen to Fitz.

The only sound in the room is the steady beat of a heart monitor. Slowly stirring, Fitz feels the pleasant and familiar sensation of someone holding his hand. Not just someone. _Her_. What’s _not_ so pleasant is the heavy throbbing feeling coming from the back of his head, causing his thoughts to blur from one to the next. _Why am I in the med bay? What the hell happened? Is Jemma okay?_

The person at his side must notice a change in his breathing, as she squeezes his hand and places another hand gently on his shoulder. “Fitz?” she says softly.

The bright lights in the room prevent him from cracking his eyes open no more than a sliver. Squeezing her hand back, he swallows and takes in a few deep breaths. “Jemma?” he whispers.

“Hey, you’re okay. It’s good to see you awake.” Her voice is soft, tender. She moves her hand from his shoulder to his forehead, stroking gently. The only thing alerting him that this isn’t a dream is the sour feeling in his gut. Something happened, and he’s afraid to know what.

He squints, trying to take in his surroundings. “Hey,” he says groggily. Looking down at his chest, he sees the pale blue of a hospital gown. He also notices they’re alone, and in a rather small isolated room, so he assumes his condition is not entirely serious. Still, confusion washes over him.

She scoots her chair closer to his bed. “Do you remember anything?”

“Not really. Last thing I remember was…uh…heading over to Radcliffe’s to wipe AIDA’s hard drive.” He tries to sit up, but a sharp ache in the back of his head causes his to flinch. “Ah.”

“Easy. You hit your head pretty hard.”

“What?”

“AIDA, she…she pushed you through a glass door in Radcliffe’s lab.”

“ _What?_ ”

She squeezes his forearm. “You’re okay. Only a concussion, but nothing too serious. They’re mainly keeping you here for observation. You’ll probably be sore for a few days.”

Fitz’s head begins to spin as he tries to concentrate on her words. _AIDA. Pushed through a glass door. A concussion._ _What the hell happened while I was out?_ He shakes his head through his confusion. “What…what did she do? Why would she do that?” he asks.

“It appears she figured out how to rewire her programming.”

Realization hits him hard in the chest. The conversation from the director’s office floods him memory, where they argued back and forth about the possibility of AIDA becoming dangerous. _Mack was right._ He takes in a deep breath and lets it out slowly. “The Darkhold.”

She nods. “That’s what we believe. Seems like it corrupted her, gave her the ability to think and act freely somehow.”

He looks around the room, attempting to look through the windows that lead to the rest of the med bay. He knows Jemma’s safe, except for the prominent bruise on her forehead that he’ll ask her about later, but he doesn’t see any of his other team members. “Did she hurt anyone else?” Waiting in silence, he watches as she shifts her eyes to her lap. Her expression tells him all he needs to know, but he still needs to hear her say it. “Jemma?”

Biting her lip, she finally looks up to meet his eyes again. “She killed Nathanson,” she says slowly.

_Killed. No. No no no no…_

“And injured some agents as well.”

_But she was meant to protect…_

“But Mack took care of it.”

This stops his frantic train of thought. He looks up to meet her eyes. “Took care of it. What do you mean?” he asks, emphasizing each word carefully.

She pauses again and looks down. A wave of sorrow progresses its way across her face. He can’t prepare himself for the blow she’s about to deliver. “He decapitated her with his shotgun axe.”

Hesitantly, he looks down in his lap, stunned by her statement. A silent “oh” is all he manages.

_But she was meant to protect…_

“We tried to stop her, Fitz. Daisy, the Director, and I just got back from our mission to find the base’s power shut down, and she was completely controlling our network. Even the Quinjets.” As she continues, she moves her hand to his shoulder, slowly tracing her thumb back and forth in a motion he’s done too often to comfort her. “She was looking for the Darkhold, obviously. But thank goodness we developed that backup server when we did!”

Light makes it way back to her eyes. He gives her credit for trying to stay positive, but he has to admit that it’s doing little to help adjust the mood.

“I got that up and running with Radcliffe while everyone else tracked AIDA down. She did get her hands on the Darkhold, until Mack, _well_ …”

“Right. Got it.”

As much as he wants to hide his hurt feelings, knowing how much pain AIDA brought to his team and to his relationship with Jemma, he can feel the anguish already spreading across his face. It wasn’t supposed to be like this. AIDA was meant to help their team, to protect them. To protect _her_. That was his only motivation for getting attached. And now, everything has blown up in his face. And he wasn’t even _there_. If only he had just been there, he could have tried to recalibrate AIDA’s programming, maybe reason with the team that’s she’s not actually a threat. But he wasn’t. Instead, he was knocked out cold without a clue as to what was going on.

Pressing his lips together, he attempts to formulate his thoughts into words. “It’s all my fault,” he settles on.

“Fitz.”

“No, Mack was right, I should have seen this coming. I…I should have persuaded Radcliffe to stop the project when I had the chance. Or at least rethink it. And if not, I should have been there, to help you guys get control of her. Then maybe we wouldn’t have had to _destroy_ her—”

“Hey, hey, stop. None of that.” She moves herself closer so their foreheads are nearly touching. The feeling of her breath so close to his face calms him through his distress.

She uses the back of her fingers to stroke his cheek. “It’s not your fault she read the Darkhold. She needed to in order to get you back from that other dimension. And there’s nothing you could have done today. She overpowered _everyone_ at Radcliffe’s, not just you. No one stood a chance against her. I know you wish you could have been there today, and I _wish_ you were, but we handled it, and it’s over.” She lifts her head to place a light kiss on his forehead. “I’m sorry it had to be this way,” she whispers.

He shakes his head gently. “I don’t like this. Being in the dark, and waking up to catastrophe.”

“You’re telling _me_.” She lets out a short huff.

It takes him half a second to understand her response. _Of course_. How could he be so thick? Of course she knows what it’s like being in the dark. He tends to push that day as far back in his memory as possible. The day that he thought they lost each other. _Again_. After so much, they nearly lost each other, and she didn’t even know he was gone. _And what a way to go out_. Being sucked into a sea of darkness with no explanation. He can only imagine how helpless she felt that day, and he doesn't even want to think about the kind of pain she would have felt if he hadn't made his way back to her.

Thinking of this moment and her feelings helps him to notice a slight shift in her expression. Despite delivering the news that they found a way to stop AIDA, there’s something still troubling her behind her eyes.

“What is it? There’s something you’re not telling me.”

“No,” she scoffs, letting her hand fly to whisk away his question. But he knows her better than that. It will eat away at her from the inside unless she lets it out in the open. He pulls on her arm to bring her closer to his bedside, not letting her get away with her silence. He gives her a pleading look, noticing her eyes beginning to mist over.

Finally, she gives in. “I mean, yes. But, it doesn’t concern you. It’s just about Senator Nadeer and her brother Vijay.”

“No, of course it does. Hey. Whatever concerns you concerns me. What happened?”

Letting out a long sigh, she returns her hands to his, holding onto him for support. “We found him. He was actually alive, and safe, for the most part. We tried to get him to come with us, but his sister was too convincing. I let him down, Fitz. We don’t know where they are, or what she’s planning to do with him, but there’s this feeling in the pit of my stomach that’s telling me that’s he’s not safe. She’s working with the _Watchdogs_ …”

Her face crumbles at her last word and she lets her head fall onto their pile of hands as she quietly breaks down. He hates to see her like this. She’s so clever and strong, and she cares so much. All he wants is for her to see how much good she does instead of focusing on what she can’t do. He reaches out to run his fingers through her hair to sooth her as much as he can, letting her weep in silence for a few moments.

It isn’t until she lifts her head back up that he speaks. “Hey, it’s okay. We’ll figure it out. We always do. This isn’t the end of our search him. We’ll keep looking, see if we can get Coulson and Mack on board.”

“Yeah, okay,” she says, nodding in agreement. “I’m sorry. Just one of those days.”

“Don’t apologize. From your story, it sounds like you played a pretty heavy role in stopping AIDA today. And I know you want to, but…you can’t do everything.”

“I know.” Wiping her hands across her cheeks to catch any stray tears, she shifts to move back into her chair, but Fitz prevents this by pulling on her arm.

“Come here,” he whispers.

“What?”

He does his best to shift to the side of the bed and pats the space next to him.

“Fitz, you were thrown through a glass door. The last thing you need is someone sleeping on top of you.”

“Not on top of me, but next to me should be fine. You’re not going to be sleeping alone after a day like this. Not on my watch.”

She hesitates for a half second before giving him a soft smile. “Oh, alright, then.”

She takes off her shoes and gently moves onto the bed, slipping her legs underneath the blanket. Curling on her side to snuggle as close to him as possible, she links her arm through his and rests her head on his pillow.

“Let me know if you want me to move,” she tells him softly.

“I will.”

After a few moments of laying in silence, she’s already fast asleep, exhaustion finally taking over, the steady rise and fall of her chest calming Fitz through his heavy emotions from the day. As much as he wants to move on from AIDA, he can’t fight the feeling of wanting to know why she malfunctioned. She didn’t show any signs of a change when she assisted them in stopping Eli Morrow. So what triggered this change in her? And why now? An ache starts to make its way from his neck all the way up to his forehead. Whether it’s from his injury or his troubling thoughts, he doesn’t know, so he decides to focus on the feeling of Jemma's hand clutching his arm and of her steady breath tickling his cheek from where she lays next to him. She may not be okay, but she’s alive, and that’s enough to ease him back into a dreamless sleep. His feelings can wait for the morning.

He never tells her to move.

**Author's Note:**

> Follow me on tumblr at [whatlighttasteslike](http://whatlighttasteslike.tumblr.com)! I always post my fics there along with corresponding title graphics. I would love to discuss anything fic related, so feel free to message/ask me anytime! <3


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